Awesome Backgrounds for Web Design Inspiration

Every website has its own unique style and relevant design properties. Unique backgrounds aren’t often found in minimalist designs, but other styles use some incredible website backgrounds with bold design techniques.

I’ve cataloged a handful of these awesome backgrounds to help designers find ideas for their own background designs. Whether you’re looking for vector backgrounds or repeating patterns, this post is sure to have something that’ll tickle your fancy.

Before we get started with inspirational websites, we’ve gathered a list of 50 awesome wallpapers in 5 categories that you can use for your own designs or desktop wallpaper:

Urban

The 2015 dConstruct website is one of my favorite modern layouts. It uses vector shapes and graphics to create a retro-futuristic design.

Their background style changes between each page section which creates a high contrast for this single-page layout. Colors, shapes, and textures are applied make a natural flow between each page section.

Viget is a creative firm that runs a number of digital blogs. Their Inspire blog is geared towards design and features a large background of trees in a watercolor style. As you scroll this background blends into a solid color which makes it easy to apply onto lengthy pages.

Another incredibly creative background design can be found on Boompa Records homepage. This features colorful gradients that shift all the way down the page.

What’s most interesting is how these colors repeatedly shift. The top starts with green and moves into blue, which moves into violent and finally solid purple. This effect can be achieved in your own website either with a tileable BG image, or with CSS gradients.

Vector graphics can make or break a website’s branding, and this is certainly the case with Sails.js. Their mascot is an 8-legged cephalopod holding a few tech devices. This character appears both in the header and footer background.

Repetitive use of a mascot like this helps to build brand awareness. The background itself may not use crazy effects, but the octopus is enough for brand recognition and to create one awesome background design.

Sara’s portfolio site is rather simple yet still quite enthralling. She uses very simple vector shapes & characters to differentiate between sections on the page.

The variations of color also affect text style which gives the illusion of separation. The best thing about this type of background is that anyone with vector skills can mimic it to some degree of success.

One of my favorite background designs is the GitHub Enterprise webpage. They use vector clouds decorated with network connections to signify cloud computing as it relates to AWS hosting.

GitHub as a whole is known for incredible design work, but this page really takes background design to a new level. I’m also a fan of their GitHub Education page which uses a blackboard texture + animated icons to bring life into the design.

The landing page for Birdboxx uses vector graphics to create a small background scene. Natural green tones offer a sense of outdoors with clouds and a little birdhouse vector icon. This works into the branding but also gives a sense of beautiful design aesthetics.

FFive is a design agency with an exceptionally colorful background. At the top you’ll find an above-ground scene with birds and trees and rainbows. As you scroll down the background shifts into an outer space design with stars and a vector moon at the very bottom.

The trend of background video has been around for years. On some websites it looks incredible and the homepage for Offradio is one such occasion.

This looping video sticks to the header and plays an audio reel in motion. This background visually displays a message to visitors and conveys a wonderful sense of dynamism when switching between header slides.

I love a repeating tiled background when done properly. The Octonauts website is one great example using a single hue with repeated icons.

Also the Octonauts header uses a Flash animation to create motion on the site. While many designers would argue that SVG is more suitable for this technique, it still produces a recognizable header across the entire website.

The freelance designer/developer Dean Oakley uses a horizontal scrolling effect on his portfolio site. This creates an interesting background design where content moves across the page rather than up-and-down. Not everyone will appreciate this effect, but it’s definitely unique and fits well with the background style.

What I love about the 690 Design website is their use of vector work plus a fixed pattern. The homepage header uses a fabric-like pattern to simulate a stage curtain. The vector character is a conductor which fits perfectly into this design style.

The entire website for Wireframe Plus is incredibly well-structured, both the background and page elements. It follows a more natural style that uses textured background elements with blended graphics and icons.

Their contact form is particularly interesting where each field uses a pencil-style hand drawn border effect. Everything just feels natural and really works together as a whole.

Yes Insurance uses a subtle vector background with animation to draw attention. Clouds are animated in the sky with a fixed footer of people driving along a road. It’s cartoony and fun while still providing a solid background for the website to sit atop.

A website dedicated to a young couple and their history from incipient friendship to long-lasting marriage. The header uses animated ocean waves and a brilliant sun graphic to create depth and breathe life into the design.

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Jake is a writer and user experience designer on the web. He currently publishes articles related to user experience and user interface design. Find out more on his website or you can follow his updates on Twitter @jakerocheleau